


Just The Two of Us

by KaytiKazoo



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Friendship, Gen, Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 14:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30073344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: A quiet moment between best friends
Relationships: Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Just The Two of Us

Leo stepped out of the bathroom and flicked the light off behind him, the only light left in the room the bedside lamp. Jemma had her hair up and was tucked under the blankets already, a little blemish patch shaped like a star covering up the pimple on her chin that she had been complaining about earlier. She smiled at him as she looked up from her phone, the light shining from under her chin and casting shadows on her face. 

“How’s Daisy?” he asked. Her smile turned sheepish and a blush spread across her cheeks in the blue light from her phone screen. 

“She’s, she’s good,” Jemma said.

“Is she?” Leo asked teasingly as he circled the hotel bed and climbed into the other side with her. “Your face didn’t give  _ anything _ away at all.”

“Shut up,” she mumbled. “And what about you? How’s, uhh, what’s his name? Lance Bass?”

“Shut up,” he said, jostling her. “You know it’s Hunter.” 

“Right, right, Lance Hunter,” Jemma said with her saccharin tone mocking him. He rolled his eyes at her the way he always had. “How’s he?”

Leo turned away from her to plug his phone in to begin charging and his eyes caught on a message from Hunter.

**Hunter:** Yeah, of course, get some rest, love. I’ll see you tomorrow

“Uhhh, he’s good,” he replied. “He’s really good. Uhm. Actually.”

He trailed off and turned to look at Jemma, laying down on his side and snuggling into the pillows. He’d always loved hotel pillows; there was a fluffy quality to them that wasn’t found anywhere else. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Do you think that you can love two people?” he asked quietly. 

“What? Yes, of course you can.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Love isn’t - Leo, love isn’t a pie chart. The more you love one person doesn’t diminish that love you can have for other people.”

“But you don’t think it’s weird, or, or wrong, if someone, someone has, or could have, two partners instead of one?”

The look on Jemma’s face softened from confusion to something softer, warmer, more familiar. 

“Oh, Leo. Hunter  _ and _ Bobbi got you, huh?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said softly, like it was a secret the world couldn’t know. Jemma didn’t count, though. Jemma was his best friend. She carried all his secrets and never once had let him down in the decade plus they’d been friends. “I didn’t mean to. I thought, I thought it was just Hunter, but the more I spent with him, and with him, Bobbi, the more I just started to picture myself there with them, you know? I just, I’m in over my head, Jem. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“No one really does, Leo.”

“No, I know, but I feel even more out of my depth than usual. This isn’t, this isn’t a tech problem. I can’t take it apart and study the connections. This is, this is  _ people _ , this is  _ human connections _ . How do I know what to do?”

“You’ve done okay so far.”

“I’m not dating them, though. We’re just friends, and that’s only because Hunter wouldn’t leave me alone until I talked to him.”

“Well, now you just have to talk to him a little bit more.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is.”

“Then, why haven’t you done anything with Daisy if it’s  _ that simple _ ?”

“This isn’t about me and Daisy.”

“It is now.”

"Okay, snarky, Daisy is still grieving Lincoln. I'm not going to ask her out until she's ready to start dating. I won't do that."

"Except she's totally ready to start dating," Leo said.

"What? No, she isn't."

"You're not the only one who talks to her, and she absolutely is."

"What did she say?"

"You cannot tell her that I told you or else she will absolutely quake me into little pieces, but when we went grocery shopping a few weeks ago while you were pulling that double shift at the hospital, she might have mentioned that she had signed up for a dating app. She was complaining about men's behavior in those apps, which is completely understandable. I tried it once and I will never do it again."

"And you're sure she's looking to _ date  _ someone, not just someone to hook up with?"

"I'm sure."

Jemma hummed and looked over at her phone. They were due back home tomorrow after their week vacation, a road trip around the nearby states to see US history left in landmarks and museums, but it seemed Jemma couldn't wait one more day. He watched as she picked up her phone, her screen left on her text thread with Daisy, and she started to type up a message. 

Leo considered it for a moment, stepping into his group chat with Hunter and Bobbi and asking them out, but he wasn't even sure how he'd do that, or what they would say in return.

_ Sorry, Leo, we don't feel that way about you _ .

That would devastate him, and not just because of the rejection. Hunter was one of his best friends. He started the day with a good morning to him, and ended it with a goodnight. When his coworkers were being extra annoying, he had Hunter to complain to. When he couldn't sleep, and his mind was running a mile a minute, he had Hunter who picked up the broken train of thought he left behind and put it together into something coherent. If he asked them out, and they didn't want him the same way he wanted them, and that ruined their friendship, he didn't know what he would do.

It was better if they didn't risk it. 

Except Jemma looked up at him mid-message.

"You should talk to them," she said softly. "They'd be fools not to love you too, blind fools."

“I don’t know,” he said. Their voices were so low, it was a miracle they could hear each other, but they didn’t have to speak sometimes. After so long by each other’s sides, they could carry an entire conversation with their eyes. “What if I’m bad at it?”

“You’ve had boyfriends before. You’ve dated.”

“Not people like them. Not, not people that I really like.”

“Oh, Leo,” she said.

“Don’t say oh, Leo like that.”

“You’re afraid you’re going to mess it up, and that you’ll scare them away, so it’s better to be alone on the sidelines rather than take the risk. But as someone who loves you very dearly, I can guarantee you that you won’t lose them, you won’t scare them away. Even if they don’t feel that way about you, which I highly doubt from the way you talk about them, you won’t lose them. They’ll still care about you and want you in their life.”

“But what if it ruins that friendship?”

“You told me you loved me once,” Jemma said, and Leo hissed at the memory, “and we’re still friends.”

“It was awkward for like six months.”

“And we survived it, didn’t we?”

Leo sighed and grabbed his phone.

“If this goes bad, will you hold me as I cry myself to sleep?” he asked, and he was only slightly joking.

“Every night for as long as you need, babe,” she said.

He tentatively typed out a message to his group chat with tremoring fingers.

**Leo:** I want to talk to you guys about maybe going on a date, all together, if you’re interested

He sent the message and looked at Jemma as she sent her own. She smiled at him, and he laughed softly. It would hurt to lose Hunter and Bobbi if they didn’t feel the same, but to lose Jemma would be devastating. He couldn’t imagine his life without her right there at his side.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked.

“No, not at all.”

**Hunter:** I never thought you’d ask.

**Bobbi:** How’s tomorrow after you get home? A little welcome home dinner and we can talk about what happens next

Leo grinned, and when he looked at Jemma, she had a matching expression. He didn’t have to worry, he’d always have Jemma there with him. They were Fitzsimmons after all, and they always would be, regardless of the future. They were together, and they were family, and he always had Jemma. 

**Author's Note:**

> Born half of an image of Jemma and Leo laying on a bed talking, and my anger over "There isn't room in my heart for two people.", here's a soft little friendship, because I love them so much. 
> 
> -k


End file.
